The Amazing Turnip Girl's Very Special Birthday Cake

 

Oh that's a mess isn't it? It's also very delicious. 

See, for the Amazing Turnip Girl's birthday, being in July, we do either ice box cakes or ice cream treats. 

This year has been well, interesting. To say the absolute least. 

She asked for a "Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake". And I was going to give her whatever she wanted. 

So that meant coming up with a recipe for an icebox Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake.

Recipe first! Then all the story. 

TG's Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake

• 1 box of Twinkies, sliced in half across the top, lengthwise. (so both sides have the round top and flat bottom and creamy filling) 
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1 can tart cherries packed in water (drained
• 1 box cheesecake flavored instant pudding
• 1 8 oz brick cream cheese
• 1.5 cups of milk
• whipped topping or whipped cream

Mix cherries. 
Blend together milk, instant pudding and cream cheese. 

In a 9x13x2 inch pan, put a layer of twinkies, cream side up. 

Spread cherries on top. 

Second layer of Twinkies

Spread cheesecake layer on that.  

Cover and put in the fridge for at least 4 hour. Serve with a spoon and add whipped topping as you like. 

It's honestly just that simple. No cooking involved. 

So icebox cakes, as per the name, started before refrigerators were affordable and common. Most recipes are teeth achingly sweet though. Which makes sense. When it's very warm, we want sugar for the energy rush, or at least that's the theory. 

That said, I definitely needed this cake to not be too sweet, which is why I added the can of tart water packed cherries to the pie filling layer and the whole brick of cream cheese to the cheesecake layer. That helped balance out the sweetness of the Twinkies. 

Honestly, it was DELICIOUS. I was kind of impressed. TG was thrilled of course, and the rest of my family enjoyed it a lot. 

Book Review- Cake Pops by Bakerella

Bakerella needs no introduction I'm sure. Her adorable cake pops have taken the crafty baking community by storm.
If you haven't heard of her or Cake Pops yet, Cake Pops are very cute cake on a lollipop stick. She forms cake into animals, miniature cupcakes and all sorts of other cute things, and dips them in candy coating. Darling mouthfuls of cake that are sure to be impressive for parties and bake sales.
This book has the basic technique for making them using boxed cake mixed and jars of frosting. The ease of the basic technique will just astound and delight busy people. The craftiness to decorate them makes them a great project.
You honestly need no special skills to make these wonderful creations. You don't need to know the difference between tips for a pastry bag, and you don't need to be able to make a perfect cake from scratch. The supplies are all fairly easy to find and affordable.
This book has over 40 cake pop designs that will suit every occasion. Little sports inspired ball cakes for the sports enthusiast in your family to little skull pops for Halloween, the ideas in this book can keep you busy for a long time and inspire more ideas. You'll look at canape cutters and candy differently imagining what you can make using them.
One of my favorites is the clown pops which use burnt peanuts in a very clever way for hair.
Spiral bound so it lies flat when open, this is a fantastic book to share with a teen or pre-teen. My daughter was even more enthused than I was by it.
I expect Dalek and Tardis cake pops in our future.
You can get this book directly from the publisher, Chronicle Books,

Sugar Free Chocolate Orange Cake Treats

One of my newer family traditions is to come up with a new recipe every year on my birthday for my Uncle Lamar. He was diagnosed a few years ago with diabetes.  Last year it was Banana Chocolate Bread which he doled out to himself a sliver at a time. 

This year, it's chocolate orange cake filled with a coffee cream cheese icing. If you want to substitute sugar you can. 

I made the cake in my sandwich maker because my oven still isn't fixed. Mike's just started a new job a couple weeks ago and just hasn't had the time. 

Baking cake in a sandwich maker? It's like Easy Bake but for grown-ups. 

For the cake:

Chocolate Orange Cake-

Dust off the sandwich maker you never use. Wipe it out very clean. Make sure the non-stick surface is intact.

Dry ingredients- 

1 cup Splenda or similar measures like sugar sweetener

1 cup flour- I used my usual whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

Mix dry ingredients well

Wet ingredients-

1 egg or equivalent egg substitute

1/4 cup melted butter (you could use oil, but I like the richness butter gives sugar free recipes), I used salted so didn't add salt to the dry ingredients

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. orange peel or orange zest. Adjust to taste. I used dried orange peel because it's convenient

1 tsp vanilla (everything is better with vanilla)

Mix wet ingredients well

Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well. The batter is fluffier with Splenda. it's sort of weird to work with. Just trust it will all work out okay.

Heat up your sandwich maker and put a 1/4 cup of batter in each well. Close it. Because it's non-stick it doesn't need to be buttered or greased.

Check after 3 minutes with a toothpick, if the tooth pick comes out clean, it's done. Otherwise check about every minute. It doesn't take long at all to bake cake in a sandwich maker.

Keep making cakes until you've used all the batter.

Frosting/filling

1 8 oz package of cream cheese

1 cup Splenda

1/3 cup of coffee

The Splenda might foam a bit. Mine did. This stuff is so weird to work with. 

Beat well until it's fairly smooth and fluffy. 

Cut each triangle cake in half, spoon in some frosting to make a sandwich. Wrap in plastic wrap individually and chill.

My daughter and husband both tried it and declared it a success, and in fact didn't hesitate to lick the frosting beaters.

I'll let you know what my Uncle Lamar thinks of them!

Vintage Craft Books

Saturday, my beloved husband took me to Bishop's Attic. Bishop's Attic is a local thrift store that's just the absolute definition of thrift store to my mind. They will sell almost anything they are donated. There are half tubes of paint, fabric, books all over the place and my favorite is their 3/1.00 "work clothes" rack. Jeans, button down shirts, teeshirts, all sorts of things that are a little too worn or a little too stained for most places to sell, but they do sell them. 34 cent jeans are great for upcycling!

I spent 20 dollars and walked out with 8 books including 2 new old craft books for my collection and a few cookbooks, a bunch of fabric for The Turnip including a scrap of a loteria print which I might steal a piece of for a pin, a skirt each for The Turnip and I. Mine is a plain black skirt, hers is a wild diagonal pink stripe she loves and wore with complete disregard for fashion with a red blouse and a blue diagonally striped tie, and a nice bunch of dpns. Some incomplete sets but incomplete sets make nice hair sticks.

One of the craft books was Better Homes and Garden's Treasures from Throwaways published in 1976. Some of the ideas in it are brilliant. Closer to Christmas I'll post scans of my 2 favorite Christmas ideas. I really loved this idea for a stool to sit on.

 

Pretty sure I can get a couple old tire rims if I ask around. The cushions are sewn to fit. I imagine you could use the depression on the insides of the rims for some storage as well, or strip the hardware off an old door and make a coffee table using the same idea.

The real treasure was this.

  

Nifty enough. I love old cake decorating book, but what made it just wonderful was the inside cover.

  

I think the person who owned it originally did wedding cakes and took pictures of them. Aren't those brides lovely? The lines of their dresses are so gorgeous.

  

  

I do so hope they had their happily ever afters.